Wow, it has been over a month since my last official WIP Wednesday posting. And it feels even longer than that.When I last posted a WIP Wednesday progress wwaaayyy back in August, I had plans for finishing off revisions and beginning work on a brand new shiny and exciting WIP.
Except that didn't happen.
Instead I am once again elbow deep in Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.
Up to this point when talking about revisions and rewrites I have used the two words interchangeably. However, as I have begun to make the latest changes to BTDATDBS I have been very carefully referring to them as reWRITES - and suddenly the difference is very clear to me.
Now other writers may see this another way, and this is strictly my own way of looking at things, but here is what I see as the difference between reWRITES and reVISIONS.
REVISIONS. This is something that is done with red pen in hand (well technically you can use any color ink... but why would you?) where you cross out little bits, maybe write in other little bits, and just generally make a lot of squiggly lines indicating the need to split a paragraph or correct a misspelled word. In a word, revisions are nit-picky.
REWRITES. This, on the other hand, is something that is done with a power saw, and a take no prisoners attitude. It's big, bold, and sometimes even bloody. No part of your manuscript is safe - from characters to plot points to location - anything can be torn to shreds at any moment. Of course, it's not only about destruction - because then you have to go back and fill in the now gaping holes. Depending on the level of devastation - you may end up doing a lot of rebuilding.
After having recently been given some excellent suggestions on how to make my manuscript stronger, it is in reWRITES of this type that I currently find myself. These will actually be the biggest rewrites I have undertaken on this MS. Prior to this, I'd say I did about two rewrites - although much more minor ones - and they were after getting feedback from my first beta readers. Since then there have been many many many many many - just uncountable really - round of revisions. Revisions, for me, are kind of like that - one round just blends into another. And after I finish these reWRITES, there will be another round of reVISIONS - acting as a clean up crew of sorts.
So, that's where I'm currently at. What about you? How are your works in progress? And do you differentiate between reWRITES and reVISIONS (your definitions don't have to be the same as mine) when you are working on your MS?
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